1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method of making artificial rocks and rock formations and more particular to a new, novel and unobvious method of making a full life size artificial rock formation from natural rocks and natural rock formations.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Large rocks, boulders and combinations of rocks and boulders forming cliffs have been used for decorative or simulative purposes in landscape gardening, museum dioramas, waterfalls, rock gardens, habitats for animals in zoos, and marine seascapes. Natural rocks are obviously very heavy to handle and transport and often too heavy to be supported on conventional floors. The advent over the years of new materials for producing artificial rock formations have made these rockscapes very appealing to people or companies desiring same. However, the materials and methods currently used to make artificial rock formations all lack a certain degree of authenticity when used as substitutes for the rockscape found in nature.
Consequently, a need exists for improvements in techniques for making artificial rock formations which will result in the artificial rock formations more closely resembling the natural rocks found in nature.
Methods of making artificial rock formations are in the prior art. Representative patents in the general area of making artificial rock formations are U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,082,871 (method for forming a decorative novelty device); 4,244,993 (method for making simulated marble and product of the method); 4,385,088 (decorative artificial rock like article); 3,836,619 (method of forming artificial stone); 4,043,826 (process for making artificial rocks); 3,924,037 (method for making artificial stone); 3,546,052 (artificial rocks having shells filled with fluent material).
Although the above referenced patents represent various variations of making artificial rock formations, there are basically two methods of making or producing large rock formations, known in the industry as rockscapes.
The first method is the casting method. This involves casting small "turtle shell" rocks, stacking and joining them together structurally, and hand tooling all the joint areas to make one large rockscape. This method has several drawbacks in that it is slow, costly and requires many skilled hand tooling artists. The casting method cannot reproduce an exact reproduction of a natural rock wall formation and all its features due to the size limitations of the casted rocks and the inability to produce overhangs and out croppings without a large amount of time and expense. Further, a rockscape made by the casting method has the appearance of being made from many small rocks and thus looses its natural look.
The second method of making large rockscapes is known as the direct method. The direct method involves the use of reinforcing steel bars bent and tied together in such a way so as to try to attempt to resemble a rock formation shape. Expanded metal is layed over the reinforcing rods and covered with mortar. While the motar is still wet, artists attempt to carve and work the mortar to make it look like a real rock surface. The drawback of the direct method is that it requires a number of skilled artists to carve the mortar and still the finished product does not resemble a natural rock surface with all the little cracks, crevices and pores a natural rock surface has. To employ a crew of artists to create in exact detail the rock surface would be cost prohibitive for any job.
Thus, none of the prior art approaches disclose the method of the present invention wherein a full life size rockscape is made with photocopy exactness from a natural rock formation.